


The Right Answer

by BaffledJailbird



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaffledJailbird/pseuds/BaffledJailbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The silence left Sherlock feeling shaken and empty. He felt some residual mystery clattering away inside of him and echoing throughout his body begging to be seized and bound by comprehension. Sherlock turned his back on John’s door and descended the stairs to the living room once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Answer

The eerie stillness outside infiltrated the flat through the cracks under the windows, the space under the front door and flooded Sherlock’s senses. There wasn’t even the nuisance of continual ticking because Sherlock had used the last wall clock for its parts in building a mechanized wind up doll that could write out pre-programmed notes in perfect calligraphy. The time investment was justified by the lack of crime to keep him occupied over the course of a tediously slow month.

Now in the silence of the living room, Sherlock almost jumped at the faintest sound of John’s voice. A grunt or a groan, Sherlock couldn’t tell but strained to hear. Then a sudden violent screech from the bed springs and silence once more.

Nightmares.

Another plaintive sound came from the room above and the distant rustling of the covers that Sherlock could only just make out. He sat still as a cat listening wide-eyed in the dark. After a beat there was a slightly louder groan, more awake.

Sherlock had moved from the sofa to the landing at the washroom door without making a sound. He stood resting a hand on the wall and listened with his right ear turned in the direction of John’s door a few stairs away. The sound of John’s labored breath met his ears and he could tell from the trembling rhythm of it that he was sobbing. However, it wasn’t long before the room was quiet once more.

The silence left Sherlock feeling shaken and empty. He felt some residual mystery clattering away inside of him and echoing throughout his body begging to be seized and bound by comprehension. Sherlock turned his back on John’s door and descended the stairs to the living room once more.

***

“Sherlock, anything you’d like for breakfast?” John asked as he came briskly down the stairs with an air of practiced informality. Still, the question caught Sherlock off guard.

“You’re giving me an option?”

“Well yeah, just figured you might have a preference. Pancakes, waffles, eggs on toast, omelet; just tell me what you’d like and I’ll make it for you.”

Oddly moved by this offer, Sherlock’s gaze softened without his consent and he smirked at John almost imperceptibly. “We have some berries in the fridge if I recall correctly,” he said.

“Yeah, think so. So, pancakes with fruit? Or waffles?”

“Waffles. Much more practical for holding the berries in place as I’m eating.”

John laughed. “I should have guessed. Right then, waffles coming right up.”

***

John sighed heavily in defeat as he took the mobile from Sherlock’s long fingers and dialed the number to the plumbers. One of Sherlock’s experiments had melted the pipe under the bathroom sink and it needed replacing. Of course Sherlock refused to make the call himself, so upon John’s return from work he had immediately demanded John make the phone call in his place. The bathroom sink was indispensable and needed fixing as soon as possible, immediately would be nice. John merely glared at Sherlock sidelong as he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. Sherlock ignored him and went back to typing up the results he had managed to scrounge up from the part of the experiment that hadn’t gone awry.

***

Sherlock shuddered against the chills wracking his body and felt his vision swim as dizziness overtook him. He lay sprawled on the sofa wrapped in the duvet from his bed with freshly brewed tea steaming from the coffee table next to him. John was sitting opposite him in the armchair reading a book.

“Can I get you anything?” He asked.

Sherlock sneezed.

“Tissue,” He groaned dramatically.

Not even a minute later a box of tissues was deposited on the table next to his tea and Sherlock reached for it. After cleaning himself up he let the used item fall to the ground next to the sofa and growled in frustration. He had no time for this.

“It’ll be no use getting angry over it,” John said sagely from his chair. “The sooner you get some rest the sooner you’ll be back on your feet.”

Sherlock knew this, of course. It didn’t make a bit of difference, though. Being sick was for normal people. He wasn’t normal.

He felt a particularly strong chill travel the length of his body and shivered in its wake. The shivering didn’t stop and he fought his teeth from chattering. Inhaling slowly, Sherlock stilled his trembling and closed his eyes.

“You don’t need to be here.” He said to John.

“Yes I do.”

A whole new warmth spread through Sherlock in a languid flow from the pit of his stomach over his chest and into his limbs like warm water pouring over him and he sighed.

“Thank you.”

***

Delicate. He felt delicate. He hadn’t spoken in two days and he wasn’t sure he knew how to break his silence. He felt heavy with things he couldn’t make sense of. He despised these onslaughts of raw, uncategorized reactions in himself. Memories and ghosts that haunted him. Everything he did not let himself feel; everything he told himself he was immune to would crop up and break over him and knock the air from his lungs stealing his voice away as they suffocated him.  

He sat in the quiet of the flat as the twilight glow seeped in through the open window. He simply watched the sky; unmoving. Not the twitch of a muscle. Stilling his body meant holding together the cracking surface of his barely façade. If he moved, he feared he’d break.

He wouldn’t sleep tonight. This would be his third night staring out into the darkness.

He heard the quiet shuffle of John’s sock-clad feet and the gentle muffled clatter of something as he set it on the coffee table out of Sherlock’s line of sight. He lingered there a moment, no doubt staring at the back of his head and then padded away into the kitchen, obviously to make tea.

After an interminable two hours, Sherlock finally turned round in the chair to see a cold cup of untouched tea and next to it his violin case laid elegantly on the table top. For a moment Sherlock only stared quietly, and then he reached for the case and brought it into his lap.

A few minutes later he was breaking his silence. Not with words, but with notes. He played facing the window and he heard John come down from his room and sit as quietly as possible in the chair furthest from him to listen. Sherlock smiled secretly to himself and welcomed John with the warm and hypnotic notes he chose to play next.

***

He dreamed of warmth. An all-encompassing shapeless comfort like oxygen; free and unoppressive, like the heat of the sun, or a light summer breeze. It existed as a guarantee, but something only he possessed, though he couldn’t understand it. He could almost feel it taking shape under his hands. A solid form, extraordinary in its inexplicable omnipresence; it had a rhythm. A slow, constant rhythm like the gentle beat of a drum that guided Sherlock as he walked onwards under its influence. One foot in front of the other: Step.by.step.

Sherlock awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs and his stomach growled. First he scowled at his body but resigned himself and stumbled out of bed inelegantly before fighting with his dressing gown, barely managing to pull it on. Grumpy about nearly losing out to a house coat, he dragged his feet from his bedroom door all the way across the living room and plopped down into one of the bar chairs at the kitchen island with an unnecessarily loud yawn.

“Good morning,” John said without turning away from the stove.

Sherlock grunted in return.

“Tea?”

Sherlock grunted again. A moment later a steaming cup of English Breakfast was set before him.

***

John was bleeding. He was broken, literally. He had two cracked ribs, the knuckles of his right hand were fractured and his lip was split. One eye was swelling shut and his breathing was intensely labored as he stood before Sherlock’s limp form slumped against the cold warehouse wall. Multiple bodies lay in John’s immediate vicinity; most never to rise again, one still breathing and glowering dangerously at the doctor with murderous intent. The man lunged and John used all his weight to counter all two-hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. Dislocating his shoulder in the process, John managed to force the brute off balance, kicked his legs out from under him by quickly landing back on his good hand and connecting a strong kick to his assailant’s ankle that most certainly shattered the bone there. With a strangled yelp he crumpled to the ground and John took final measures to ensure he would not be standing again within the next twelve hours.

Turning slowly to Sherlock, equally battered and barely conscious, John staggered forward and fell to his knees. He passed out and landed with his head in Sherlock’s lap.

Sherlock shakily held his phone to his ear and Lestrade picked up before the first ring was done.

“Where are you?”

He just barely managed to choke out a reply before letting his hand and the phone fall to his side in exhaustion. Too weak to do anything more, he simply watched John's face blearily with bloodied eyes. Eventually he too lost consciousness.

***

Due to the nature of Sherlock’s wounds, he’d recovered much more quickly than John. After weeks in hospital, he was finally home and Sherlock had taken it upon himself to care for John, catering to his every need. He fussed over John the way Mrs. Hudson fussed over their flat and the doctor was utterly bewildered by it.

“Sherlock, I can get myself a cup of tea.”

“True as that may be, you will not. Stay put and I’ll get it for you.”

“Sherlock…”

“Read a book. Watch porn. Just shut up and let me work.”

John let out a strangled noise that ranged between hysterical and furious. He resigned himself to silence and grabbed the book off the coffee table that he’d been reading. He grumbled grumpily to himself and lost himself in the words on the page.

A few minutes later Sherlock set a fresh cup of tea down on the table and returned to the kitchen-turned-lab to continue his work for the day. John eyed the tea and heaved a defeated sigh.

“Thank you, Sherlock.”

“You’re welcome, John.” Sherlock replied mechanically as he sat examining some chemical compound John couldn’t guess.

***

Another night of disquieting, infuriating and terrifying silence. Sherlock wanted to scream. He huffed and paced the floor, his mind too distracted to summon something to occupy the negative space in his mind.

Try as he might he couldn’t ignore the insidious mystery that had grown too many sizes too large. It was bigger than he was, too much for him to simply contain and put away. It had expanded and it was consuming him from the inside out. He had no grip on this thing, no scientific explanation. He feared it like he’d feared nothing else in his life.

Sherlock lay stiffly on the sofa feeling himself engulfed by panic and terror. What was this inexplicable anxiety? He was enveloped in an oppressive and inescapable question that he couldn’t even begin to answer.

And then he heard John. It was the same as the last time he’d heard it. A faint groan, the violent screech of bed springs. More bed springs. John was thrashing. Louder cries this time.

Sherlock rushed up the stairs. He didn’t think twice as he barreled through John’s door and practically flew to his bedside where he rested a strong hand on his shoulder and shook vigorously.

“John,” he commanded. “John.”

With a little more coaxing, the doctor sprung forward with a loud gasp. Sherlock caught him with a strong hand on his chest as he heaved breath after jittery breath. The aftershock of the nightmare was still raw and John found himself sobbing silently before Sherlock with no reserve of dignity. Sherlock merely held his shoulder firmly to comfort him until he had finally composed himself. His breathing evened out, but his face was still wet with residual sweat and tears. He didn’t wipe it away. His expression was set with strict determination as his eyes stared unseeing into the gloom of his room and Sherlock listened as the rhythm of his hammering heart almost echoed off the walls. Suddenly Sherlock recognized it.

The recognition drove a cold dagger through his chest and he doubled over unexpectedly at the shock of it. Now leaning forward with one hand on John’s bed and the other still resting on the doctor’s shoulder, Sherlock forced himself to breathe.

“Sherlock?” John asked quietly.

He didn’t reply. Instead he moved to sit on the edge of John’s bed and rested his hands on his thighs keeping his gaze anywhere but on John.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Better. Sorry.” John replied.

Sherlock shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“You?”

Sherlock hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

A long silence filled the space between them.

“Fine pair, we are.” John observed bemusedly.

Sherlock smirked. “True.”

Without really thinking, Sherlock turned to John and reached out a tentative hand. He ghosted it over John’s and after slight hesitation, he rested it there. He kept his eyes on that spot, not daring to look up into his eyes.

The bed shifted as John leaned forward. He stopped once his eyes were level with Sherlock’s, their faces only inches away with their breath mingling.

The beating of both their hearts was audible over the silence. Not in tandem, but creating a complimentary rhythm to the other. Sherlock let himself be led by the beating of John’s heart, like a guiding force into the maelstrom of the mystery that had finally taken a comprehensible shape. Of course it was John. Stupid.

With a new and sharp clarity, Sherlock closed the distance between them, decisively sealing his lips over John's. Still high on the adrenaline of their mutual emotions, the kiss was an immediate reflection of their respective internal turmoil: it was deep, desperate and demanding. John pulled Sherlock forward by his shirt to deposit him on the mattress and was now moving above him in frenzied passion. Sherlock let himself be maneuvered under John’s weight and strained hard into the kiss, crushing their mouths together.

John straddled Sherlock’s hips and ground against him in earnest. Sherlock ground back, bucking and rolling his own sumptuously. John moaned into Sherlock’s mouth and pulled back to breathe. Pausing to regulate his breathing, he held himself at arms length looking down into Sherlock's eyes. When the detective impatiently attempted to recapture his lips, John sat up and away from him.

“Sherlock,” the doctor breathed, “this… I can’t do it like this.”

Sherlock was silent. He felt an icy glacier taking shape inside him, freezing over his heart. John noticed.

“No, not like that. Sherlock, don’t.” He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to the detective's slightly parted lips. “I can’t just shag you, Sherlock.”

He was quiet, trying to find the words he needed to explain himself.

“This means more to me than getting off with you,” he breathed at last. “If I let myself do this, I’ll…” He trailed off self-consciously.

He was quiet for a long time. Sherlock simply lay there watching him, feeling dizzy and holding his breath. This was foreign ground and uncharted territory. Sherlock hadn’t visited this aspect of possibility. As always, it was the thing right in front of him that he’d missed. The most obvious thing had slipped by unnoticed.

He shakily reached a hand out to cup John’s face. It felt dangerous to do this, forbidden. Like his touch had a hypnotic influence on John. He let his hand fall away and balled it into a fist at his side, resolving not to touch him again until he’d finished speaking. Just this once Sherlock didn’t want to influence the outcome. Just this once he wanted to stand back and let the pieces fall where they may.

John sighed. “I’ve wanted this a long time, Sherlock.” He said finally. “And I know that if I let myself do this, I won’t be able to go back. And I don’t want to… I can’t imagine where I’d be if…”

“If you weren’t with me,” Sherlock finished for him.

John met his eyes with a piercing intensity and the question there was practically spelled letter for letter.

“John, it’s mutual.”

The doctor was still. Sherlock could see the hair on his arms raise itself as a shiver ran through him. Sherlock watched as John hung his head and shook it before facing him once more. His eyes were soft, now calm after the storm of his nightmares. They shone in the darkness with a deep honesty and affection that enveloped Sherlock and made warmth spread through him as it was wont to do. He reveled in the comfort of it, sighing contentedly as he lost himself in John's eyes.

The doctor leaned forward once more and kissed him gently, languidly and lovingly. It was a kiss that spoke of need and of devotion, but it also spoke of a promise. Not now, it said. There will be time for that later.

Sherlock accepted it gratefully, in truth relieved at being spared the physical intimacy for now. Even he had to admit he wasn’t prepared. Nor practically (no condoms, no lubricant), nor emotionally.

After a long session of kissing, caressing and semi-innocent exploration, John was laying next to him with an arm draped over his chest and sleeping soundly. Warm and happy, Sherlock was coaxed into a deep slumber with his limbs entwined with John’s and a smile on his lips.


End file.
